Researchers have developed and tested a new technique known as ribose-seq that allows them to determine the full profile of ribonucleotides -- RNA fragments -- embedded in genomic DNA.
Georgia Tech researchers, working with colleagues in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), have released a new version of a genome annotation system capable of analyzing more than 2,000 prokaryotic genomes per day, helping researchers accelerate prokaryotic genomics-based studies worldwide (the average was 20 a day).
The recommendation that adults should get 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week may be too ambitious for many middle-aged and older adults. That’s one recommendation from physical activity and health experts who published a paper this week in the British Medical Journal.
By analyzing such parameters as the force applied by key presses and the time interval between them, a new self-powered non-mechanical intelligent keyboard could provide a stronger layer of security for computer users.
For swimming through sand, a slick and slender snake can perform better than a short and stubby lizard. That’s one conclusion from a study of the movement patterns of the shovel-nosed snake, a native of the Mojave Desert of the southwest United States.
If you’re sitting in a coffee shop, tapping away on your laptop, feeling safe from hackers because you didn’t connect to the shop’s wifi, think again. Hackers may be able to see what you’re doing just by analyzing the low-power electronic signals your laptop emits even when it’s not connected.
Researchers have taken a comprehensive look at the growth of crowd science, describing the considerable value of donated time and noting the limitations of nonprofessional research assistance.
A Georgia Tech study notes that copyright law is navigated on a daily basis by Internet users, and that for amateur creative types publishing on the Web’s largest creative venues, they often don’t trust the websites to safeguard their art.
When someone you know is wearing an unfamiliar hat, you might not recognize them. Georgia Institute of Technology researchers are using just such a disguise to sneak biomaterials containing peptide signaling molecules into living animals.
The Taj Mahal’s iconic marble dome and soaring minarets require regular cleaning to maintain their dazzling appearance, and scientists now know why. Researchers are pointing the finger at airborne carbon particles and dust for giving the gleaming white landmark a brownish cast.
A research team has designed a new approach that could lead to underwater imaging lidars that are much smaller and more efficient than the current full-size systems. The new technology would allow modest-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carry bathymetric lidars, lowering costs substantially.
A new project will provide computational tools designed to help identify and characterize the gene diversity of the residents of microbial communities.
A Georgia Tech professor is offering an alternative to the celebrated “Turing Test” to determine whether a machine or computer program exhibits human-level intelligence.
As part of the four-year, $2.1 million National Science Foundation research project, data analytic teams from Georgia Tech and the University of Texas, Austin, will develop algorithms and methods to convert the electronic health records data into meaningful clinical concepts or phenotypes focused on diseases and specific health traits.
Georgia Tech studies mid-air orientation and impact behavior in both cats and humans as it applies to reduced impact in falling robots, especially those that one day may be used for search-and-rescue missions in hazardous conditions.
Needles almost too small to be seen with the unaided eye could be the basis for new treatment options for two of the world’s leading eye diseases: glaucoma and corneal neovascularization.
In its latest Emerging Cyber Threats Report, Georgia Tech warns about loss of privacy; abuse of trust between users and machines; attacks against the mobile ecosystem; rogue insiders; and the increasing involvement of cyberspace in nation-state conflicts.
The amazing ability of sidewinder snakes to quickly climb sandy slopes was once something biologists only vaguely understood and roboticists only dreamed of replicating. By studying the snakes in a unique bed of inclined sand and using a snake-like robot to test ideas spawned by observing the real animals, both biologists and roboticists have now gained long-sought insights.
Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new type of foam – called capillary foam – that solves many of the problems faced by traditional foams. The foam could be used to make lightweight, sustainable materials.
A team of Georgia Institute of Technology researchers has created speech-to-text software for Google Glass that helps hard-of-hearing users with everyday conversations. A hard-of-hearing person wears Glass while a second person speaks directly into a smartphone. The speech is converted to text, sent to Glass and displayed on its heads-up display.
Here’s another reason why it’s a good idea to hit the gym: it can improve memory. A new Georgia Institute of Technology study shows that an intense workout of as little as 20 minutes can enhance episodic memory, also known as long-term memory for previous events, by about 10 percent in healthy young adults.
A research team has developed a new search algorithm that improves a robot’s ability to find and navigate to tagged objects. The team has implemented their system in a PR2 robot, allowing it to travel through a home and correctly locate different types of tagged household objects, including a medication bottle, TV remote, phone and hair brush.
A three-continent research consortium is evaluating a novel environmental crowdsourcing technique for assessing water quality in India. The technique relies on 53-cent test kits and the nation’s ubiquitous mobile phone service.
A simple point-of-care testing device for anemia could provide more rapid diagnosis of the common blood disorder and allow inexpensive at-home self-monitoring of persons with chronic forms of the disease.
The increasing acidification of ocean waters caused by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could rob sharks of their ability to sense the smell of food, a new study suggests.
Wet spinning processes produce fibers using tiny needles to eject jets of liquid precursors. These liquids normally exhibit a chaotic “whipping” structure as they enter a secondary liquid that surrounds the microscopic jets. Researchers have now learned how to control that chaotic structure.
A new class of synthetic platelet-like particles could augment natural blood clotting for the emergency treatment of traumatic injuries – and potentially offer doctors a new option for curbing surgical bleeding and addressing certain blood clotting disorders without the need for transfusions of natural platelets.
Scientists have shown that RNA produced within cells of a common budding yeast can serve as a template for repairing the most devastating DNA damage – a break in both strands of a DNA helix.
An analysis of patented university inventions licensed to biotechnology firms has revealed early bottlenecks on the path to commercialization. To open these roadblocks, the researchers suggest that better communication of basic research results during the discovery stage could lead to faster commercialization down the road.
Seismic events aren’t rare occurrences on Antarctica, where sections of the frozen desert can experience hundreds of micro-earthquakes an hour due to ice deformation. Some scientists call them icequakes. But in March of 2010, the ice sheets in Antarctica vibrated a bit more than usual because of something more than 3,000 miles away: the 8.8-magnitude Chilean earthquake. A new Georgia Institute of Technology study published in Nature Geoscience is the first to indicate that Antarctica’s frozen ground is sensitive to seismic waves from distant earthquakes.
Security researchers at the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) have discovered a way to jailbreak current generation Apple iOS devices (e.g., iPhones and iPads) running the latest iOS software.
By analyzing the brainwaves of 16 individuals as they watched mainstream television content, researchers were able to accurately predict the preferences of large TV audiences, up to 90 percent in the case of Super Bowl commercials
Georgia Tech researchers have created a functional MRI-compatible hemiparesis rehab device that creates a long latency stretch reflex at the exact time as a brain signal. It is designed to assist stroke victims.
With the help of a smart tablet and Angry Birds, children can now do something typically reserved for engineers and computer scientists: program a robot to learn new skills. The Georgia Institute of Technology project is designed to serve as a rehabilitation tool and to help kids with disabilities.
The Georgia Tech Research Institute’s software-defined, electronically-reconfigurable Agile Aperture Antenna (A3) has now been tested on the land, sea and air.
Researchers have developed a microfluidic technique for fabricating a new class of metal-organic framework (MOF) membranes inside hollow polymer fibers that are just a few hundred microns in diameter. The new fabrication process, believed to be the first to grow MOF membranes inside hollow fibers, could potentially change the way large-scale energy-intensive chemical separations are done.
Georgia Tech researchers have created a tool to monitor the accessibility of Web pages around the world that can be installed by adding a single line of code to a web page. The tool, Encore, runs when a user visits a website where the code is installed and then discreetly collects data from potentially censored sites.
The evolution of the ribosome, a large molecular structure found in the cells of all species, has been revealed in unprecedented detail in a new study.
A new Georgia Institute of Technology study investigated how quickly 32 animals urinate. It turns out that it’s all about the same. Even though an elephant’s bladder is 3,600 times larger than a cat’s (18 liters vs. 5 milliliters), both animals relieve themselves in about 20 seconds.
Stanley Miller, the chemist whose landmark experiment published in 1953 showed how some of the molecules of life could have formed on a young Earth, left behind boxes of experimental samples that he never analyzed. The first-ever analysis of some of Miller’s old samples has revealed another way that important molecules could have formed on early Earth.
Several years ago, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers created a technology-enhanced glove that can teach beginners how to play piano melodies in 45 minutes. Now they’ve advanced the same wearable computing technology to help people learn how to read and write Braille. The twist is that people wearing the glove don’t have to pay attention. They learn while doing something else.
Georgia Tech researchers have identified a weakness in one of Android’s security features. The research, titled Abusing Performance Optimization Weaknesses to Bypass ASLR, identifies an Android performance feature that weakens a software protection called Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), leaving software components vulnerable to attacks that bypass the protection.
Georgia Tech researchers froze ant rafts and scanned them with a miniature CT scan machine to look at the strongest part of the structure – the inside – to discover how opaque ants connect, arrange and orient themselves with each other.
New research reveals how the algae behind red tide thoroughly disables – but doesn’t kill – other species of algae. The study shows how chemical signaling between algae can trigger big changes in the marine ecosystem.
A study of 338 patients with coronary artery disease has identified a gene expression profile associated with an elevated risk of cardiovascular death. Used with other indicators such as biochemical markers and family history, the profile – based on a simple blood test – may help identify patients who could benefit from personalized treatment and counseling designed to address risk factors.
A new technology under development at the Georgia Institute of Technology could one day provide more efficient delivery of the bone regenerating growth factors with greater accuracy and at a lower cost.
A new review article in the journal Science points the way toward a future where lignin is transformed from a waste product into valuable materials such as low-cost carbon fiber for cars or bio-based plastics. Using lignin in this way would create new markets for the forest products industry and make ethanol-to-fuel conversion more cost-effective.
When ovarian cancer spreads from the ovaries it almost always does so to a layer of fatty tissue that lines the gut. A new study has found that ovarian cancer cells are more aggressive on these soft tissues due to the mechanical properties of this environment. The finding is contrary to what is seen with other malignant cancer cells that seem to prefer stiffer tissues.
Co-evolutionary changes in species may reverse traditional predator-prey population cycles, creating the appearance that prey are eating the predators, according to a study to be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences